Is there any way I can get access to the rest of my memory?

[Graham Watkins]

On 23/09/12 16:13, Avi Greenbury wrote:
> Graham Watkins wrote:
>> A bit of googling suggested that installing the PAE kernel would
>> make more memory accessible.  This I have done but it hasn't made
>> any difference.
> What did you install, and have you rebooted since? Could you paste the
> output of
>
>    uname -a
>
> into an email so we can see which kernel you're running? Also, how are
> you testing for the amount of memory available? And do you know which
> processor you're running? PAE requires cooperation from the CPU, but
> it's been a very long time since anybody made a CPU that didn't
> cooperate properly.
uname -a output: Linux gingecat 3.2.0-30-generic-pae #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri 
Aug 24 17:14:09 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

According to System Monitor, 3031Mb is available.   According to my 
bios, 4Gb is installed and 3Gb is usable

Processor: 2x Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual  CPU  E2180  @ 2.00GHz

Is this any good for 64 bit?

>> I know that I should get the full memory if I install the 64 bit
>> version but, if I have understood correctly, this would use twice as
>> much memory anyway, giving me equivalent to 2gb on a 32 bit system,
>> so I don't really see the point.
> You've understood incorrectly, fortunately :) A tiny proportion of
> what is in RAM takes up twice as much space as what it would do
> otherwise - results and current-states of CPU operations, basically -
> but the huge majority of stuff is exactly the same size - all the
> cached files and other assorted data. In reality there's such a
> marginally small increase of memory usage that it may as well not be
> there, especially if as part of the upgrade you get another GB of
> memory.
>
>
That's good to know.  Everyone here seems agreed on that point so I must 
have misunderstood.  I expect that at some point I'll give 64 bit a try, 
although for the time being I'll stick with what I've got because I've 
just finished a new install and I'm not really in the mood to go through 
that again.

Thanks to all who replied.

Cheers,

Graham